Last week I read somewhere that a group of teachers from Calcutta were taking a group of schoolchildren for a trip to learn mathematics. Such efforts are rare and one hopes that the children will learn something new. However, one is not sure why the classroom training can?t be as exciting as the mathematics excursion! Not everyone can afford a trip like that and not all can be accommodated. An effort like this one may end up creating a divide.

PUZZLE 1: Sitting in your comfy chair one evening and reading a good book, you notice something white behind the ventilation grill next to the fireplace. Carefully removing the grill you discover a white envelope containing a diskette and a piece of paper. Excited, you check out the disk, which contains a programme. When you run the programme you are greeted with the cryptic message: X hits the spot, but what does X represent? A small text box on the screen seems to be awaiting an answer. A little disappointed and confused, you unfold the piece of paper and read the following:

T R C H X X I A

P X N F C T X

H X L E X I A X

E H W T X E U X

What does X represent?

PUZZLE 2: I am a 12-letter word.

(A) My 2nd, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th and 8th is a word that means the same as the word that is the name of a very well-known search engine.

(B) My 7th, 5th, 6th and 4th is the name of a famous philosopher.

(C) My 10th, 11th, 3rd, 1st and 8th is the snow leopard of Asia.

What am I?

Solutions on March 21

CORRECT ENTRIES

February 21

Anirban Sinha, IIT-Kharagpur; Sandeep Jain, Dimapur; Kapil Rajak, St Xavier?s College, Calcutta; Arnab Thokder, Jalapiguri Government Engineering College; Debasis Ganguly, Alumnus Software Ltd; Sambaditya Siddhanta, Cognizant Technical Solutions; Anirban Sinha, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur; Ravi Raja, Cal?20; Bijan Kanti Ghosh, B.E. College

CORRECT ENTRIES

February 14

S.P.S. Jain, New Delhi; Apoorva Samadder, Jamshedpur; Anuradha Chatterjee, Guwahati; Prasenjit Sinha Ray, Bolpur; A.K. Majumder, Cal-29; Subhash Chandra Bandyopadhyay, Burdwan; N.K. Sengupta, New Jalpaiguri; A.R. Mitra, Bokaro Steel City; Suhail Sarkar, Jhargram; Sohini Chattopadhyay, Cal-9

Please send your solutions within 10 days to knowhow@abpmail.com. Mention the date of the puzzle in the message box. Send complete entries, not one-line answers

PUZZLE CRACKED

The response this week was dismal. We had just a handful of entries. Here?s how Kapil Rajak got it.

Place              1st; 2nd; 3rd; 4th

Name              Steve; Bert; Tom;                             Larry

Surname       Rose; Baird; Korn;                             Hart

Opening              Queen?s Gambit; Ruy                      Lopez; Giuoco Piano,                      King?s Indian

Number              40; 16; 31; 32

Hint: Hart and King?s Indian Defence will be in the same row. Steve will be in the upper row to the row of Ruy Lopez Opening. Conclusions: (a) Steve cannot be in the last row and Ruy Lopez Opening cannot be in the first row. Larry, Korn, Queen?s Gambit each will be in distinct rows. So it doesn?t mean that only one player was playing on an even board.